Field of the Invention
This invention relates to performing obstacle avoidance in autonomous vehicles.
Background of the Invention
In many congested, urban areas like San Francisco, Calif. or London, UK, motorcyclists often overtake slow or stopped vehicles in the traffic by traveling between lanes, namely lane-splitting. This is a very dangerous driving activity since it is hard for drivers in adjacent vehicles to detect such activities, especially when lanes are merging. Even for future autonomous vehicles, which might have built-in 360 degree sensing systems, it would be challenging to identify fast moving objects like motorcycles changing lanes at much higher relative speeds. This difficulty would hence present challenges to the overall sensing suites and algorithms. It is further problematic where objects or vehicles occlude a sensing system.
The systems and methods disclosed herein provide an improved approach for sensing motorcyclists that are lane-splitting.